Rabicano is one of the white patterns present in horses.
¶ Phenotype
Rabicano can be characterised by its very typical white ticking or “roaning” pattern. The word rabicano is of Spanish origin; rabo meaning "tail" and cano meaning "white". This describes the appearance: rabicano horses have white hairs at the base of their tail, which is often called a coon or skunk tail. There are often white horizontal stripes or rings near the tail base, and the top of the tail itself may have white hairs mixed into it. Rabicano also causes white ticking concentrated around the flank area. It may spread out from there, to the rest of the body. The white ticking typically aligns itself in a vertical striping pattern on the sides of the horses.
The expression of rabicano can vary strongly between horses. Some horses may only have a couple of white hairs in their tail, while other horses may have white ticking that covers almost their entire body.
| Rabicano - Arabian Horse | |
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Very expressive rabicano may be confused with other white patterns that cause white ticking, such as (hidden) sabino, white spotting or roan. Rabicano can be distinguished, however, by looking at the tail of the horse. Typical roan characteristics such as the inverted V's on the legs and evenly distributed white ticking are also not present in horses that are just rabicano.
¶ Genotype
In real life, the genetic cause of the rabicano phenotype has not been discovered yet. It appears to be passed on as a dominant trait in at least some families of horses. In Horse Reality, it is caused by the recessive rab-allele of the hidden rabicano gene. This means that a horse needs 2 copies of the rab-allele for it to show on their coat.
Below, the resulting phenotype of each genotype is listed:
- rab/rab = Rabicano
- rab/n = Not rabicano
- n/n = Not rabicano
¶ Breeds
The following table lists all breeds that can currently have the rabicano (rab) allele in-game.
| Breeds |
| Akhal-Teke Horse |
| Arabian Horse |
| Brabant Horse |
| Brumby Horse |
| Camargue Horse |
| Cleveland Bay |
| Exmoor Horse |
| Finnhorse |
| Fjord Horse |
| Friesian Horse |
| Haflinger Horse |
| Icelandic Horse |
| Irish Cob Horse |
| Kladruber Horse |
| Knabstrupper |
| Lipizzaner |
| Lusitano |
| Mongolian Horse |
| Mustang Horse |
| Namib Desert Horse |
| Noriker Horse |
| Norman Cob |
| Oldenburg Horse |
| Pantaneiro Horse |
| Pura Raza Española |
| Quarter Horse |
| Shetland Pony |
| Shire Horse |
| Suffolk Punch |
| Thoroughbred |
| Trakehner Horse |
| Welsh Pony |
¶ References
- Bellone R., Sponenberg D. P., Equine Color Genetics, 4th Edition, 2017, Wiley-Blackwell